


Order of Operations

by Huitzil



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Comedy, Gen, Mystery, Non-Linear Narrative, Poor Experiment Safety, Witches 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:48:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23743297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huitzil/pseuds/Huitzil
Summary: Because everything is out of order, that's why.Why have Eudial and Sailor Jupiter declared a truce? Why is Eudial, smelling of fondue, holding back Jupiter's hair so she can puke up a rainbow? Why is Sailor Chibi-Moon shivering in the corner, whispering about blood?
Kudos: 4





	Order of Operations


        
    
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In the end, it hadn’t been Chibi-Moon who had blown chunks after all. Chibi-Moon was just lying on the ground in the fetal position, shivering, eyes staring off into nothing as she whispered “blood… blood… so much blood… why the blood…”

Sailor Jupiter was the one collapsed onto the asphalt, hunched over, vomiting a rainbow slurry into a storm drain while Eudial held her hair back. The moment she heard Jupiter’s retch come up dry, Eudial let her go and rolled onto her back, staring up into the evening sky, exhausted. Everything smelled like overdone chocolate fondue and her hair was still smoldering.

The door opened, and Eudial’s target took two steps into the parking lot before stopping dead in his tracks. “What… What on EARTH happened here?” he asked, stunned. 

“Ugggggh…” Jupiter and Eudial groaned in unison. 

“Get, get out… hurrrrrk…” Jupiter choked out, “get out before, oh, oh, it’s coming up, get out before SHETAKESYOURHEART BLLLLEEEEAGH!” There was still more rainbow inside her to be ejected, apparently.

“You know what, you, you…” Eudial batted her hand weakly in the man’s direction without turning her head. “You just take that pure heart crystal of yours and go right on home. Enjoy it. I’m done for the day. I call backsies.” She sighed. One of her arms was now gummed onto her lab coat with molten confection. She didn’t have the energy to unstick it. “I vote we all just forget about this and pretend none of it ever happened.”

“Agreed,” Jupiter moaned.

“So much BLOOD!” Chibi-Moon whispered.
    
    
        
    
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“I’m bored,” said Professor Tomoe. “Are you guys as bored as I am?”

His daughter and his assistant nodded listlessly.

“I know! Let’s go out on an excursion. An educational one. See a movie or go to the park or have dinner. Kaori?”

“I can’t go out with you, Professor,” replied his assistant. “I need to process this PCR test as soon as it completes, or it will congeal.”

“Ah, phooey,” the Professor said. “Well, I suppose we can get one of the Witches to come with us.”
    
    
        
    
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“That’s it!” Eudial shouted, pointing at the distant glass box floating in the nothingness. “That’s my Flame Buster! Quick, quick, one of you grab it!”

“Why do you need a Flame Buster?” Chibi-Moon shouted back over the din, looking toward Eudial’s glass-and-vanadium flamethrower.

“I can burn off the foam!” she replied. She kept mashing her buzzer as fast as possible, to keep herself in the demented game show. None of the answers counted anyway. “If I burn off the foam, it won’t be insulated! Sailor Jupiter should be able to overload its matrix with her electric attack, if she hits right away!” 

Chibi-Moon nodded and leapt upward, floating toward the prize case. Only she was light enough to break the gravity. She smashed the case with her wand and chucked the device back to the Witch. “Here, CATCH!”

“Got it!” Eudial shouted in triumph.

“CONGRATULATIONS!” the daimon’s voice boomed. “You won the treasure prize of Richard Dawson! Now your trize preasure reward is a vision of YOUR ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE HELL DIMENSION DISASTER! VISIONS OF TODAY’S PAST!”

“Oh no, oh NO!” Chibi-Moon shouted. “Not, NOT THE GARDEN WEASEL!”
    
    
        
    
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“Oh, I’m sorry,” Usagi teased, “Does baby need a widdle blankie?”

“Shut up!” Chibi-Usa whined. “I’m not a baby!”

“You know who says that?” Usagi grinned. “Babies! Little tiny itty bitty babies with pacifiers and diapers and bonnets and, and… Rei, what’s another thing babies have? Those little booties, right?”

“Shut UP!” Chibi-Usa insisted with a little stomp. “I will have you know I am an educated, cosmopolitan citizen of the 30th century! Our superior culture and education means I’m more mature than YOU, you big dumb meatball-headed… meatball-head!”
    
    
        
    
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“Call off your daimon, Eudial!” Jupiter shouted over the sound of supersonic extension cords being whipped at their feet. “Call it off and, and, we’ll have mercy!”

“FASTER! FASTER! PHYSICAL FITNESS! PHYSICAL FITNESS!” the thing exhorted as it snapped at them, kept them moving. Half of the monster was a low-rez wireframe, dithering through cyan, magenta, white, and black. The other half was a grotesque, pulsating mass of eyeball-ridden flesh. It was wrapped in writhing aquamarine foam. It had a top hat on.

“If I could call it off, I would have!” Eudial snapped back. “This thing isn’t in my control! It’s twenty daimons' worth of power and four hundred daimons' worth of CRAZY!” The daimon whipped at her heel. “OW! Cut that out! STOP! I’m a scientist, not a sprinter!”

“Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!” Chibi-Moon barked, her own heels constantly struck.

“Well if you can’t call it off and we can’t defeat it then where does that leave us?” Jupiter was the only one to keep up with the daimon’s demented pace.

“It leaves you trapped in the BATTLE ZONE!” the daimon shouted, as sparkling Abrams tanks started falling from the sky.
    
    
        
    
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Chibi-Usa’s eyes were wide with terror, body trembling, fixated on the horror before her.

“That… that… that… She just killed that woman! With a chainsaw! Why would she -- oh no, the blood! The blood! So much blood!” she whispered, mostly to herself.

“...You doing okay there, Chibs?” asked Makoto.

“I’m f-f-f-fine!” she insisted, unable to look away from the carnage.
    
    
        
    
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Eudial still had 20 minutes to spare when she came back to her car, the pockets of her lab coat stuffed with bon bons. “Mmph. These are so good,” she said to herself around a mouthful of whipped raspberry. “I better eat them all before Mimette sees me.”

As she approached her car, she was ever so rudely interrupted by the rudest of interrupters, those insufferable Sailor Soldiers.

“I am the Pretty Soldier who fights for Love and for Courage!” the girl in the sailor fuku with the green trim announced as she leapt out of the bush. “I am Sailor Jupiter! I'll make you feel regret, it'll leave you numb!”

“Oh ho, it’s one of the Sailor Brats!” And all alone, too! Eudial would easily be able to pick her off, even without her weapons. “Too bad for you, Sailor Jerk, you’ve come all alone against my greatest creation yet!” She threw back her head in a haughty laugh, then mashed the remote activation device like the detonator to a very cool bomb whose explosion she would not even look at.

Click.

Concerned, she held up the remote, level, and carefully pressed the button head-on with her thumb. 

Click.

Her car was now shaking. This was extremely not good.

“Ha-HAAAAA!” came a squeaky voice from the hedge nearer her side, and a small pink blur leapt out of it, smashing right into her hand. “Chibi-Moon-Yoink-Attack!” The tiniest Sailor Soldier yanked the device from her stunned hand, hit the ground with a roll, and scampered over to safety behind Sailor Jupiter. “Ha ha! Got your keys!” she taunted.

“Wait, wait STOP,” Eudial shouted, futilely reaching out to the little thief, “no no NO NO NO I NEED TO INPUT THE DISARM CODE!”
    
    
        
    
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Cyprine’s face was illuminated only by the eerie, overbright glow of the monitor on Viluy’s desk. The only sounds were the low hum of the machines, the clicking of the helical feed, the tapping of keys. A human form slithered behind her with ill intent.

“Cyprine.” came the voice of Mimette behind her. “Get off the Internet. I need to use the phone.”

“Get bent,” Cyprine said. “Use the other line.”

“Eudial is on the other line!” Mimette complained. “She’s ACTUALLY doing work, unlike you! Now get off the Internet, I need to be the fifteenth caller.”

“Doing very important research for the Professor,” Cyprine said without looking away from the screen. 

“YOU ARE LOOKING AT PICTURES OF CATS!” Mimette snapped. “What do you know about research anyway? You’re not even a scientist! I have a PhD in particle physics, where’s your PhD? Oh, you don’t HAVE one? You have a certificate from David Copperfield Correspondence School? Maybe that means you need to GET OFF THE INTERNET AND LET ME MAKE MY CALL!”

“Oh, you have a PhD, huh?” Cyprine said as she finally turned around, arm resting on the chair, smug as all get-out. “Did they offer a course in how to keep a man past the first date? Maybe you should have aimed higher than the sympathy D on that one!”

“Oh, you SKANK!” Mimette shouted, and grabbed for Cyprine’s hair. 

“Get-offa-me! Get-offa-me!” Cyprine hissed as she grabbed onto the front of Mimette’s shirt, slapped the other Witch in the face. 

Without use of their magic -- far too dangerous around the equipment -- neither made an impressive combatant. They grappled together, pulled hair, jabbed with their fingernails, attempted to shoulder-check one another… right into the helical feed belt, smacking it head on. The agar packet and the daimon egg skittered across the fog-blanketed floor, but the most concerning was the yellowed plastic box, which popped open and sent out a blizzard of miniature sheets of paper, scattering everywhere.

“What the heck are you two doing in there?” Tellu shouted from the cultivation lab.

“Crud!” Mimette stage-whispered. “Quick, help me pick these back up!”
    
    
        
    
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Chibi-Usa was all ready for the incognito operation. Hat, trench coat, sunglasses, fake moustache. Identity completely concealed. Nobody at the box office would suspect her.

“Two for the 6:30 showing,” Makoto said to the ticket-taker. She gestured back to the short trenchcoated figure behind her. “One for me, one for her.”

“All right miss, that will be 1500 yen.” Makoto paid with no complaint, it wasn’t her money, and flashed two tickets at Chibi-Usa.

Incognito operation: successful!
    
    
        
    
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“Take my hand!” Jupiter shouted to Eudial as the Witch dangled precariously over the sideways nothing.

“I can’t! I can’t let go of this!” she replied. Only one hand held fast to the railing, the other held fast to her experimental Flame Buster. A half-melted chocolate unstuck from the side of her lab coat and fell endlessly into the infinite nothingness until it hit a wall.

“You have to give me your hand!” Jupiter exhorted. “You’re going to fall!”

“INFINITY! INFINITY! INFINITY!” the daimon cackled, twirling unnaturally, with too many limbs becoming too few.

“Just grab me by the wrist and throw me behind you!” Eudial said in a panic. “You have super strength!”

“...Right, good idea!” Jupiter said, and she did just that. Roughly, she grabbed Eudial’s forearm and YANKED the Witch upward, slamming her back onto the catwalk with a groan of pain. “Now, let’s finish this, quick!”
    
    
        
    
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The darkness inside of Hotaru, the Mistress 9 that lay in half-slumber near the edges of her mind, loved the displays of carnage, of suffering, of murder and mayhem, of a sneak preview of the Silence she would usher in. Hotaru herself was not fully aware of this presence, yet somehow, she still struggled to undermine it.

“This is so fake,” she whispered. “Look at that. That chainsaw was a full 20 cm away from her face. It isn’t even running. And, and, and look at that! Those aren’t even her hands! Those are a boy’s hands!”

“That’s called a ‘pick-up shot,’ honey,” her loving father said. Always happy to educate his precious girl. “When they realize they didn’t film an angle they need to make the scene flow, they go back and film little bits like that with a random production assistant filling in for the actress.”

“Speaking of flow,” Viluy monotoned, “this is some of the worst fake blood I’ve ever seen. Hammer blood is more realistic, and that’s glowing pink.” No popcorn, crappy special effects, Viluy was starting to wonder if she made the right choice after all.
    
    
        
    
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Eudial pulled into the rear parking lot, cool as could be. Perfect visibility of the rear employee exit. The target would be ripe for the taking here, and if Sailor Moon and her friends got in the way, well, there was some cutting-edge science coming their way.

Hmm.

The guy’s shift wouldn’t be over for at least an hour. How was Eudial going to kill an hour? 

There was that chocolate shop she passed on the way here…
    
    
        
    
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“AAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAA!” all of them shouted as the centrifuge spun faster and faster, pasting them all to the outside of it.
    
    
        
    
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“Three for the 6:30 showing, please,” said Professor Tomoe. “This is my child, I will be parentally guidancing her.”

The ticket-taker clearly didn’t care at all. “2250 yen, please.”

“Ooh, can we get popcorn?” Hotaru asked. 

“No popcorn!” the Professor admonished. “You’ll ruin your dinner!”

Viluy kind of wanted popcorn too, but clearly that ship had sailed.
    
    
        
    
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Chibi-Moon looked around in a panic. She had no idea what was happening, and whatever it was, it was all scrambled up, all out of order. “W-what’s going on?”

There was a great echoing BLAM!

Jupiter shouted “Complain all you want! Your evil deeds end here, Eudial!”

The white hatchback door was flung violently back onto its hinges as smoke was sucked into Eudial’s car.

Then, things got really bad.

“Oh, this is not good,” Eudial said as the car started to rumble. “Oh, this is extremely not good. It must be an information overload -- but, but it can’t be, all the cards were a single coherent sequence…”

The walls of the world melted into a Jackson Pollock hellscape. Wherever they were, it wasn’t reality.

An enormous KA-, a precursor to the explosion.

“WELCOME TO YOUR DOOM EXAM!” a supernatural voice boomed.

The car’s lights started flashing. 

“I don’t know what’s going on either, Sailor Chibi Moon…” Jupiter said, drawing the girl close.

“You MANIACS!” Eudial snapped. “This is sensitive equipment, you can’t just interrupt me in the middle of--” Then there was a heavy THUNK from the back of the car. Then another.
    
    
        
    
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Viluy sat rigidly upright at her desk, proper posture at all times. Let Mimette lean back and put her feet up on the desk, it merely made it easier to tip her over. The helical feed behind her emitted a click every 37 seconds, moving its contents one notch further in the incubation process each time. The eerie fog of the lab passed over her lap without notice.

This issue of 2600 Magazine was fascinating. Though outdated and thus -- shamefully -- useless, Viluy had always had a soft spot for the tale of the Captain Crunch Bosun’s Whistle and how its 2600Hz tone perfectly broke into phone systems. As soft as she got, anyway. She enjoyed reading similar tales of hacking, to see creativity in going around the limitations of a system that she was unable to muster herself.

A voice from the entryway. “Oh Viluuuuuuy…” It was Professor Tomoe, and his eerie visage soon appeared at the entry, nothing but reflective glasses and a grinning mouth. “Are ya buuuuuusy?”

“What do you require, Professor?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing, I don’t need anything,” the Professor responded. “I was just hoping you could join my daughter and me… for some horrific, bloody delights…” His grin widened. “With our spare ticket to Murder House 3: Carnage Sorority 2: Rush Week Murder Apocalypse!”

Viluy looked at the magazine in her fingers. She looked at the feed system, with the yellowed plastic box clicking its way toward the incubator. “I am doing absolutely nothing of importance,” she said as she stood up.
    
    
        
    
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“I, I, I, I don’t understand…” Chibi-Usa shivered as Makoto led her out the back door, where less people could see the walk of shame. “I didn’t, I don’t even know what a wood chipper IS, why would, and, and HOW, and, and, and the BLOOD!”

“I told you it would give you nightmares,” Makoto admonished. “You promised me you were mature enough, and now look where that got us. You almost blew chunks all over me and you won’t be sleeping for a week. Was it worth it?”

Chibi-Usa could scarcely even recognize Makoto’s words. “That… that… Why would they even HAVE a badger chained in the basement? Why wouldn’t they feed it badger food, instead, instead of...” She almost doubled over. “Ugh. Ohhhh, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Makoto didn’t support her or offer to hold her hair back -- she tapped the young girl on the shoulder to get her attention. “Look at that. Look!” she hissed. “That’s the Death Busters car! Eudial’s! Do you see Eudial anywhere?”

Chibi-Usa looked around. She was still unsteady on her feet, her vision kind of swimming, but she didn’t see the red-haired mad scientist anywhere. “No… there’s nobody around…”

“Quick!” Makoto said. “Let’s transform and hide in the bushes there! We can ambush her when she comes back!”

“Oh! Oh!” Chibi-Usa said, seeing an opportunity even her queasiness couldn’t let her ignore. “I know! Let’s grab her keys when we ambush her -- she drives like a maniac, we need her off the streets!”
    
    
        
    
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“This is ancient, forbidden Squishee Lore from the distant past,” Makoto said, waggling the clear plastic cup for emphasis. Chibi-Usa had to hold their popcorn tub with both hands, but she nodded in rapt attention.

“The angle is important. If you just drop them all straight into the cup, you get a brownish-purplish mush.” She slid the giant plastic cup underneath the first spigot, with churning half frozen cherry-red soda behind it. “But, if you take off the dome lid… and you slide it in the side, like this…” She filled the cup with one thick tendril of frozen red delight, then rotated it slightly and moved on to the orange spigot. “It won’t mix together, see…” The blue, the green, the yellow. “And, ta-da! A perfect Rainbow Squishee. Take this knowledge into the future, young child, so that our progeny may know its wisdom.” Makoto slid in the thick red straw and took a victory sip. “Mmm. Rainbow.”

Chibi-Usa committed this all to memory. This was indeed vital knowledge for the future.

“Oh, hey,” Makoto said as she looked over the lobby, “isn’t that your friend Hotaru? We should say hi.”

“No way!” Chibi-Usa hissed, like they had to whisper in this crowded theater lobby lest they be heard. “I’m not supposed to be here, remember? What if her dad sees me and blabs?”

“Hmm, I guess you’re right.” Makoto pondered. “Why the heck is she here, though?”
    
    
        
    
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“We’ll have to work together if we want to survive!” Chibi-Moon exhorted them as she held out the beam of the Pink Sugar Heart Attack, barely managing to stave off the geyser of crude oil spraying at them.

“No way! I don’t trust you maniacs!” Eudial shouted. “You will just -- ACK!” 

Sailor Jupiter yanked her out of the way of a storm of playing cards. “We’re supposed to say that to YOU! You’re the one who’s going to betray us at the end, but we have no choice if we don’t want to be eaten by flying piranhas!”

Eudial fell to the floor and slid on the linoleum, the chocolates in her pockets making thick brown stains all up her lab coat.
    
    
        
    
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“Call me a baby,” Chibi-Usa grumbled. “Stupid Usagi, call me a baby, she’s just a big baby herself. Show her I’m not a baby.”

Chibi-Usa would indeed show she was not a baby. But how? What avenues of maturity were available to her at this time in the afternoon?

Of course!

“Hey, Makoto!” she said once she’d found the older brunette. The older, cooler brunette. The cool big sister type who was very helpful. And nice. And better than Usagi in every conceivable way. “Can you do me a big huge giant favor?”

“What’s up, Chibs?” 

“Can you sneak me into a movie?” Chibi-Usa asked eagerly. “Murder House 3: Carnage Sorority 2: Rush Week Murder Apocalypse?”

“What, really?” Makoto asked. “Why do you need to see that? Won’t that kind of thing give you nightmares?”

“No!” Chibi-Usa stamped her foot. “I’m not a little baby, you know! I can handle things! Hotaru’s dad lets HER watch all the gory movies she wants! And, uh, uh, this movie is of great cultural significance in the world of the future, so, you know, I wanna be able to see it just like the people in this age! The real experience!” She batted her eyelashes. “Pleeeeeeeease?”

“Well…” Makoto dragged it out to give herself time to think. On the one hand, this was dumb. On the other hand, she wanted to see that movie really bad. “If you PROMISE you won’t get nightmares. And if you pay for the tickets.”

“Of course! My treat!”

“...And you pay for concessions,” Makoto added.

Chibi-Usa’s eyes narrowed. This was going to be a hard-fought negotiation, no doubt about it.
    
    
        
    
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The Death Busters’ secret lab was dim, as it always was, dim enough that the scientists within were mostly visible by the reflections on their glasses. Eerie fog from who-knows-where blanketed the room.

“As requested.” Viluy handed the stack of paper cards, about the size of a brick and neatly stacked in a yellowing plastic case, to Eudial. “Your simple program, converted into punch card format. Unless you have an ENIAC card reader, they will be completely useless.”

“Au contraire!” Eudial said, smug. She figured it was okay to be smug. She set the container into the helical feed belt, where it would be autoloaded into the daimon incubator once the cleaning cycle was done. “I am, as always, on the cutting edge of daimon research. We’ve always struggled with optimal daimon creation. We tried a book on assassination technique, but just got a book-themed daimon, not an assassin!”

Viluy simply stared, waiting for Eudial to finish, not indulging her one bit.

“So I figured, how could I encode desired data INTO a daimon template,” Eudial continued as if to an eager audience of students, “in a way that was inseparable from its physical form? The way computer programmers encoded data before magnetic storage media. Punch cards! The data is encoded into the shape, not written on it. When all the cards are in order, the pattern of punched holes creates a single coherent sequence of information. If my calculations are correct, which they are, then this will allow me to program my own daimons to custom specification.”

“Hm.” This was as far as Viluy got to admitting Eudial’s theory intrigued her. “You could also be left with a mere punch-card-themed daimon.”

Eudial waved her hand dismissively. “The odds of that are miniscule, and if something goes wrong, I’ll input the failsafe code and abort incubation. But that won’t happen. This is a new quantum leap in daimon technology, and when I publish my findings, you will be credited as co-author.” Then she looked around suspiciously. “Now, I have to head to my office to research my next target. Projectionist, I think. Make SURE nobody messes with this before it gets loaded into the incubator, okay? Out of all the maniacs around here, you’re the only one I trust. Can you keep an eye out for the next three hours?”

Viluy nodded. “I can think of no better use of my time than ensuring this experiment will be carried out.”
    
    
        
    
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“ULTIMATE SAILOR WITCH COMBO! THUNDERBOLT FLAME CRUSHER!” they both bellowed in unison as they unleashed their last-ditch effort. The magnetic jacket that aimed the plasma flames of Eudial’s Flame Buster perfectly guided the coruscating electricity of Makoto’s magical strike, and indeed, the smoldering, crackling attack pierced through the daimon’s shifting defenses, scorching away the roiling foam armor even as it singed Eudial’s hair and baked all the chocolate stuck to her body.

The daimon howled, screeched, yeeped, and blzorted as the lightning attack disrupted its very core. The two enemies-turned-allies kept up their withering attack, throwing every last ounce of strength and gram of plasma catalyst into their last stand. At last, after a second that took an eternity, the daimon shattered to pieces, the final sound to escape it a whispered “!ylevoL”

The colors came back to their proper alignment. The hurricane of impossibility stopped. They were in the real world once again. And the world caught up with them.

“Oh God,” Makoto gasped as she doubled over. “Motion sickness--”
    
    
        
    
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Eudial double-checked the remote activation device on her key fob. Transmission light clear. Batteries fresh. Buttons free of gunk. She spun the key ring on her finger a few times with a dramatic flourish before using it to unlock her white hatchback.

“All right, Yuko,” she said to herself as the vehicle was loaded from the autofeed and trolleyed out to the launch tunnel. “Time to blaze a new frontier in science. Today is going to go down in history.”


End file.
